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There’s a little New Year’s ritual I do. Before midnight, I write on two pieces of paper: one lists all I wish to leave behind in the old year, the other all that I hope will manifest in the new year. Before the old year ends, I burn the first paper down to ash and …

It’s been a busy time for me in online dating world: much fun, new friends, maximizing my exposure to serendipity on the road to true love. I keep being surprised at how much this process teaches me about myself. For instance, I just added another paragraph to the list of qualities I am seeking in …

I exchanged emails this week with a musical friend. He’d been practicing for a performance, he told me: “The Jew leads the caroling, of course.” I haven’t actually sung one of them in decades, but I too, know the words and tunes, at least to the traditional Christmas songs of my youth: “Silent Night,” “God …

I like the way the Occupy movement has sent an echo across the country, encouraging all sorts of people toward questions of systemic inequality. Many voices have recently weighed in on questions of equity in this country’s cultural funding apparatus, shattering a resigned quiescence that had taken hold in too many hearts and minds. In …

Grantmakers in the Arts has been sponsoring an Online Forum on Equity in Arts Funding, inspired by The National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) recent report, authored by Holly Sidford, Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy. Nearly two dozen contributors involved in arts funding as researchers, foundation officers, public agency …

Tempers are running high in San Francisco, where the powers-that-be have unleashed yet another full-on demonstration of the cluelessness of U.S. cultural policymaking. This essay is in four sections: I will first describe what has happened; then discuss the context; the response; and finally, explore the reasons why San Francisco and every other U.S. city …